


Groundhog Day

by akh



Category: Battlestar Galactica, Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-27
Updated: 2015-09-04
Packaged: 2018-04-17 12:26:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4666446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akh/pseuds/akh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bill finds himself living the day of the Cylon attacks over and over again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As the title suggests, this story is inspired by the movie of the same name. I've taken some liberty with the timeline of the miniseries to allow the story to take place within the same repeated day.
> 
> The story is already finished and will have a total of 5 chapters, including an epilogue.

The first time it happens, Bill thinks he might be going crazy. Post-traumatic stress could probably be expected after the destruction of mankind, after all.

When it happens again the next morning, he is certain he has lost the plot. Quite literally.

The third morning he half expects it, but still hopes to be wrong. He’s not.

For some gods forsaken reason he seems to be doomed to relive the day the world ended, over and over again. And the real kicker is that, as far as Bill can tell, it's just him. No one else seems to be aware that all of this has already happened before, and is now happening again - and again, and again.

And it’s always the same. He wakes up. He oversees the last preparations for the decommissioning. A stilted encounter with Lee. An argument with the gods-damned Secretary of Education. A speech - except now he just sticks to the prepared text. What's the point anyway when the world’s about to end no matter what he says?

At first he does try to tell everyone that the Cylons are coming and that they should all prepare for battle, but all he gets are pitying looks. The old Commander clearly can’t stand the thought of retirement – has finally lost his mind.

Then he tries to skip the decommissioning entirely and, against orders, takes Galactica to various strategic locations where he might try to make a difference, but he always ends up dead – only to wake up again the same morning in his cabin aboard Galactica. Sometimes he gets arrested for disobeying the orders of the admiralty before the attacks even begin. He dies those times too, just like everyone else.

So Bill learns to keep it to himself. He goes through the motions of the day, anticipating every event and interaction, rarely doing anything to change the course of the day, not even by taking his coffee at a different time or taking a different turn during one of his long walks around the ship to see if something might be different. It never is. Everything always leads to the same outcome.

Strangely enough, after a while, Bill finds himself quite looking forward to the arrival of the Secretary every day.

Laura Roslin. Always boarding Galactica at the exact same time, wearing the exact same clothes, looking like she’s already carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders, even though she can have no idea of what is yet to come. That she will be President Roslin before the day is over. But still, she seems to be the only variable in this nightmare of a day that Bill can find some comfort in - something to keep him holding on to what remains of his sanity. His conversations with the crew are always more or less the same: them wishing him well on his retirement, him taking it as well as he can, knowing he will have to hear it all again the next day.

But with Secretary Roslin, no conversation is ever quite at same – at least after Bill decides to drop the argument about networked computers aboard Galactica, considering it all makes absolutely no difference the way things are going.

One time Bill tries telling her what is about to happen, but she laughs at him. Probably thinks his retirement can’t come soon enough. So the next time he talks about something else.

Instead of being the grumpy soon-to-be-retiree, he takes on the role of the gracious host (something he comes to realize he should have done from the start) and, after a tour of the ship that she always requests, he invites Roslin to his quarters to take refreshments before the ceremony.

And they talk. Unlike with his crew, Bill finds he can talk about almost anything with Laura (after a couple of weeks he takes to calling her Laura in his mind even as protocol calls for him to always address her as Madame Secretary). More often than not, they talk about books. She is drawn to his book shelves and sometimes he ends up giving him a book for her return journey, just for the heck of it.

“Keep it. I never lend books.”

He’s not really sure why he does this, knowing what is to come (or not to come, since he seems to be forever stuck in this one looping day) but he likes the way the simple gesture makes her smile. Maybe he likes to think that if they ever get out of this loop, they will already have gotten off to a better start as the leaders of what is left of humanity. And if not – if they are stuck in this limbo forever – at least it can’t hurt to let her leave a little happier than she arrived – even if she is to arrive again the next day with no idea that it already happened before.

All in all, Bill comes to the conclusion that it’s probably not a very good day for Laura either. On their first meeting, he had assumed it was simply how she was – uptight, argumentative, cold and aloof. A schoolteacher made Secretary of Education without much idea of how the world functioned beyond her school books. When he gets to know her better, through observation and conversation, he comes to realize there is much more to her than that behind the facade. She is always reserved on arrival, but a little prodding usually reveals that she is in fact smart, observant, and always interesting to talk to, no matter which subject Bill decides to pursue each day. President Adar might be a moron, but it’s somewhat comforting to know that there is at least one sensible person belonging to his cabinet. Funny thing that of all the people ranking higher than her, that it is this schoolteacher who seems destined to become the president.

Perhaps it’s not the worst thing to happen, after all.

Still, to only ever have a couple of hours with her before she must leave and all hell breaks loose, can only be satisfying for so long. For her it is always their first meeting, and no matter how much more open Bill grows towards her, she always remains guarded, even on the best days when he manages to get the most out of their conversations.

He knows she lives in Caprica City, but doesn’t know if she is originally from there. Based on the way she speaks, he suspects she probably is, but speech patterns can always be acquired.

He knows she is not married, but he can’t quite figure out if she is in a relationship or not. Sometimes he wonders if even she knows the answer.

“I don’t really have time for dating,” she tells him one day with a rehearsed smile that reminds Bill that she is, in fact, a politician.

“You seem to keep quite a collection of books here,” she dodges the question entirely on another day, pretending not to have heard his question as she inspects his shelves.

“It’s complicated,” she dismisses him a third time.

Bill knows it’s not really any of his business, but he’s inclined to think that if there is a man in her life, he is probably a fool and obviously isn’t making her very happy.

A few weeks in, he comes to the conclusion that if it were not for the impending doom and being stuck on the same day possibly for the rest of his life – if he was simply heading towards a peaceful retirement like he was supposed to - he would rather like to ask for Laura’s number so that they might meet again and get to truly know each other.

He would like that very much.

***

“Do you ever get a sense of déjà vu?” Bill asks Laura tentatively one day, having once again steered her into his cabin after the customary tour of the ship.

She casts him a curious glance.

“Yeah, sometimes,” she drawls after a slight pause. “I’m sure everyone does.” Her mouth twists into a smile as she looks at him over the rim of the glass of ambrosia he has offered her. “Why, are you having it now?”

“Something like that,” Bill replies, looking down at his own glass as he swirls the liquid inside. He looks up at Laura, and his eyes bore in to hers. “Madame Secretary, if you allow me to say, I can't shake the feeling that we’ve met before.”

It's one of those days he feels like rocking the boat a little, just to see what happens.

She hums and takes a long sip of her drink, weighing his words in a way that Bill has come to recognize as a common habit for her. She is nothing if not careful.

“It is possible, I meet a lot of people,” she says at last, tilting her head as she looks at Bill. “I really don’t think we have, though.”

No. Of course not. For her it’s always the first time. For him this is their 21st meeting, and Bill is not sure how much longer he can live like this.

Except that he doesn’t seem to have much choice. Even if he dies, which he has done frequently, trying to find a different outcome by joining the battle, he always ends up waking up again to the same day.

Or maybe he’s not really waking up at all. Maybe he died when the attacks first took place, and everything after that has just been his personal hell. The gods punishing him for never believing in them.

To be sure, the hours with Laura never feel like hell, but as time goes by Bill starts to wonder if perhaps she is meant to be his cruelest punishment.

He is, after all, growing fond of a woman he can never have, and can never get to truly know, because he will always be a stranger to her.

Hell or not, Bill decides he can’t continue on the same course anymore. There has to be another way.

If he can do nothing against the Cylons in battle, and if nobody will believe his warnings, then perhaps there is something he can do to stop the attacks from happening at all.

It’s a ludicrous thought at first, of course, but the more Bill thinks about it, the more it starts to look like the only thing he can try.

Bill's knowledge of the technology used to protect the Colonies is rudimentary at best, but even he can see that the Cylons must have somehow breached the defense mainframe to take over their network and eliminate nearly the entire military. If he can devise a way to stop that from happening, they might at least be left with a fighting chance even if the Cylons do still attack.

He has no plan, or any idea how to go about this seemingly impossible mission, but the one thing he does apparently have is time. And the benefit of repetition.

The next day, Bill takes a raptor and punches in the jump coordinates for Caprica. He doesn’t bother explaining his intentions to anyone on Galactica as it would only be a waste of everyone's time. Let them think he has decided to skip the decommissioning and take his retirement early. By the next morning he would likely be back in his rack there anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

Bill’s first attempts seem to lead him nowhere. He tries contacting his friends in the military, but trying to gather information without appearing like he himself ought to be locked up, isn't as easy as he might have hoped.

He knows that the key to the entire defence system of the 12 Colonies lies in the defence mainframe designed by Dr. Gaius Baltar. By logic, Bill can also assume that it must be through some flaw in this network that the Cylons have managed such a complete annihilation of the entire Colonial fleet. Beyond that, however, he is stumped.

Over a number of repeated days, he manages to find out that if the entire defence mainframe were to go offline, the colonial fleet would temporarily fall back on manual control, but without a direct presidential order, getting the entire system offline and all the back-up procedures initiated seems nearly impossible. As far as Bill can tell, his only other options for accessing the defence mainframe would be either by secretly colluding with Dr. Gaius Baltar himself, or by somehow sabotaging the heavily guarded unit outside Caprica City that houses the main computers used to power the defence network. The sabotage itself would likely make a big hole in their defences, not to mention cost Bill his life as a traitor, but it might at least lead to measures preparing the fleet for the real attacks.

How he could actually manage to achieve any of the options, though, is beyond Bill. He has no connections to the president, has never met Gaius Baltar, and can’t even begin to hope he could get past the defences surrounding the military IT headquarters to attempt a sabotage. He might be able to convince Saul to help, despite how ludicrous his story would seem to him, but even between the two of them it would be impossible.

 

And so Bill bides his time, because time is all he has.

On most days he flies to Caprica as soon as he wakes up at 0600 standard Colonial time. In Caprica, it’s 9 am local time when he lands.

One day Bill spends just waiting for the inevitable. He eats a hearty breakfast, visits a bookstore, and then finds himself wandering near the Riverwalk. It's a beautiful day with no sign of the devastation about to come. He’d forgotten how serene the central pool could be on a day like this.

It’s there, by the Riverwalk, that he sees Laura again. She sits by the edge of the pool when he arrives, her feet bare and dipped in the water.

She has never looked more beautiful, more serene, and Bill is mesmerized by the curve of her neck and the swell of her breasts as she leans backward, enjoying what seems to be a brief respite on an already hectic day.

He wants to walk up to her - pick up some earlier conversation - but he restrains himself, knowing that from her perspective they haven’t even met yet. What could he possibly say to her that would not make him look like a lunatic?

But Bill can’t tear himself away either. He takes a seat on a nearby bench and observes Laura from a slight distance.

Eventually she gets up as a man joins her and they begin a slow walk around the pool, lost in deep conversation. Politics, Bill figures. He can’t hear what's being said, but by the end of the talk Laura seems pleased with the result. When the man leaves, a small smile lingers on her lips as she begins walking towards the governmental buildings.

Bill's eyes follow Laura as far as he can see her, and it's while his gaze remains on the slight sway of her hips that a new plan starts to take shape in his mind.

He wonders absently if perhaps, if he could somehow get to Laura, she might be able to arrange him a meeting with the president.

He has little faith in Adar, or that the president would even listen to him, but his list of other options is short. Maybe it's worth trying.

If nothing else, he'll have a reason to talk to Laura again.

And so he waits for the next day.

When it comes, and Bill once again flies to Caprica, he makes his way to the Riverwalk immediately on arrival, determined to catch Laura this time at the earliest opportunity.

When she arrives, looking grave and lost in thought, Bill wonders if this is a good idea after all.

He has to remind himself that it’s not a good idea, but rather his _only_ idea. Then he pushes forward, ready to roll the hard six.

***

“Madame Secretary!” he calls after her.

She pauses, looking around for the source of the voice. When Bill approaches, she locks eyes with him, looking puzzled - even slightly alarmed.

“I’m sorry to intrude, but this is important,” he starts as soon as he is close enough to speak without raising his voice.

She eyes him warily and Bill can tell she takes note of his military uniform.

“Sir, I’m not sure you have the right person,” she begins. “Military matters are…”

“Not your area, I know,” Bill cuts in. “You are Laura Roslin, Secretary of Education.”

He has decided that the only way he has even a chance of getting to Laura is by telling her the truth. All of it, if he can make her listen. A lie might be more believable than the truth, but he is afraid she is too sharp to swallow any made up nonsense he might try to feed her about why he is here.

Bill can only hope his initial hesitation hasn’t already cost him his chance for today. She still looks wary, and he can already feel the brush-off coming.

He is not wrong. It comes in the form of her suggesting he contact her assistant and schedule another time. She is meeting someone else.

The trouble is, Bill doesn’t have time to go about this the long way around.

“I’m sorry Madame Secre…Laura,” he insists, looking her in the eye, willing her to give him a chance.

The use of her given name seems to jolt Laura. She eyes him again from head to toe, looking a little uncertain.

“Have we met before?” she asks at last, a slight frown creasing her forehead.

Bill takes a deep breath.

Then the words hurl out of him in one, breathless monologue. He can’t give her a chance to interrupt – to walk away.

Yes, they have met, but for her it hasn’t happened yet.

For him it has happened over and over again for weeks now.

“Later today you will board a colonial liner to take you to a battlestar called Galactica for the ship’s decommissioning,” he tells her.

She begins to walk away and he follows.

“You’re currently reading a book called “Lost in Picon” by Jaymes Kaiko,” he presses on. “You will have it with you to read during the journey to Galactica.”

She slows down, turns to look at him again.

“Right now, before I interrupted you, you were about to walk over to that pool, sit down, and dip your feet in the water.”

Her steps come to a grinding halt and Bill doesn’t miss the slight gasp that escapes her.

“I know because for me it happened yesterday. I saw you here, sitting by that pool.”

She looks at him. For the first time really looks at him, and her eyes narrow almost imperceptibly as she takes in his appearance again and then studies his face for any sign of…Bill is not sure. Dishonesty? Madness?

Then suddenly she seems to let go, her rigid shoulders slumping as if she simply doesn’t have the energy to fight against the determination she sees in him.

“Talk,” she says simply, steering him towards a bench. The same one he had sat on the previous day observing her.

And Bill talks.

He tells her about Galactica, about the decommissioning, the Cylons, the attacks, the devastation.

To Laura’s credit, she listens. He can tell she doesn’t really believe him, but at least she listens.

The little details he can tell about her that he shouldn’t be able to know is all he has to keep her listening – to keep her wondering if maybe, just maybe, there is something to what he is telling her.

Still, it takes Bill a few days’ worth of attempts, always wording himself a little differently for the best outcome, before he manages to get her to believe at least enough to ask him to wait while she deals with her other meeting.

“It’ll go well,” Bill tells her. When she gives him a questioning look, he clarifies: “Your meeting with that man.” He points at the man he has seen her meeting with every day he has been at the Riverwalk.

Bill thinks he can see something shift in her then. She gives him another look, opens her mouth as if to say something, but then closes it again and spins around, marching across the path to meet with the other man.

This time she sends the man away without entering into her usual conversation with him.

When she comes back, she tells Bill she’s meeting the president in thirty minutes and asks him to join her.


	3. Chapter 3

Getting to President Adar turns out to be just the beginning of Bill's quest. From there, it’s an uphill battle.

Day after day, Bill feels like he is wasting his time, banging his head against the stone wall that is Richard Adar.

On some days, when he can’t take another fruitless meeting with the president, Bill simply takes a break. He stays on Galactica, waits for Laura to show up at the appointed time, and takes refuge in the few hours he gets to spend with her without trying to convince her the world is ending.

Bill tells himself it is for research. The more he knows about Laura, the easier it should be for him to convince her again when he goes back to Caprica. The better he can convince her, the better chance he might have with Adar too. For some reason, Laura seems to have some sway on the president – personal or professional, Bill isn’t quite sure.

But for all he calls it research, Bill knows he has other motivations too. He is honest enough to admit himself that he likes spending time with Laura.

He enjoys the conversations they have, and he likes finding new things out about her – even though the little discoveries rarely make him think of how they might be useful in the grand scheme of things.

“I thought once I might become an archaeologist,” she tells him on one occasion, and Bill tucks away the information as something he just likes to know.

Another time he finds out she likes strawberries but has never quite developed a taste for raspberries. 

Little details that seem meaningless enough by themselves, but as they all come together, they help Bill build a picture of Laura, the woman, instead of Secretary Roslin, the politician.

And then one day she lets it slip that she has cancer.

Diagnosed that very same morning before her trip to Galactica or, on other days, before their meetings by the Riverwalk in Caprica City.

It explains many little things that Bill has come to wonder about. The dejected look she always wears when he first meets her, the underlying melancholy that always seems to be present in her - the moments she looks as if she might be in pain.

It makes Bill wish he could comfort her like the friend he feels like, instead of the stranger he is to her.

It feels disquietingly like a personal blow to him, knowing he might lose her no matter what the outcome ends up being of this endless day he’s living through.

“I’m sorry,” is all he can tell her out loud, his voice probably betraying a greater regret than their short acquaintance would warrant.

She gives him a tremulous smile and thanks him softly before she squares her shoulders and Bill finds himself once again looking at Secretary Roslin instead of Laura.

They don't speak of it anymore.

***

When Bill returns to Caprica, he does it with fresh determination. Before he meets Laura for his daily attempt to get to Adar, he spends time in the library, researching new, experimental treatments for cancer that Laura might try if he ever manages to save this day.

He knows he's being an old fool, but he doesn't let that stop him. He needs something else to put his mind on anyway, while the president continues to test his patience.

When Bill finally manages to get Adar to listen, really listen what he has to say, it feels like a break through.

It's still a long path of trial and error before Adar actually orders an investigation into the state of the defence mainframe, but when they find something, it’s already too late to fix it.

The next day, the discovery is made much sooner when Bill can tell them more specifically where to look, but still time runs out on them.

The problem is that even though the problem is found, nobody seems to know how to fix it. And try as he might, Bill can't convince Adar to take the defence mainframe off entirely and switch to manual control of the fleet.

"It's only theoretically possible," the president insists. "The fleet would be caught completely unprepared."

It's probably true, but Bill is sure they'd still be able to defend themselves better than if the Cylons take control of the entire defence network. The president, however, remains unmoved - seemingly more concerned about what terrorists might do if the defence mainframe was switched off than a Cylon invasion he never fully comes to believe in.

Gaius Baltar, the genius responsible for planning the defence system, and quite possibly the only person who might be able to fix it, is always arrested for treason as soon as the hack inside the mainframe is discovered. An unknown female accomplice is found and also arrested.

"It never works," Bill sighs in frustration to Laura one time, when they have once again gotten close, but are already running out of time. The crack in the defence mainframe is isolated, but there is no more time to fix it. The president has already fled but Laura has chosen to take her chances with Bill.

He isn't quite sure whether she believes him so thoroughly that she believes they'll all just be sent back to the start of the day when Caprica City blows up, no matter where they are, or if she doesn’t mind being blown up, or if she simply doesn't believe that anything will blow up at all.

Perhaps she has figured it doesn't matter either way since she's dying of cancer anyway. If she can be of use on the ground before she dies, that's what she will do.

Bill has never admired her more.

But in terms of saving the day, he seems to have hit another dead end.

***

It has been two excruciating months of small triumphs followed by unavoidable failures when Bill, always so focused on Laura before, notices Gaius Baltar and the female accomplice by the Riverwalk. Following his gut instinct, he decides to use the day shadowing the two of them instead of following his usual course.

The decision proves to be more fruitful than he could even have hoped for.

Within days, Bill is certain of two things: Gaius Baltar, though a thoroughly unpleasant person in general, seems to be innocent at least of knowingly participating in genocide. He may be a genius, but he is also a fool. The woman, on the other hand, seems to be the real source of trouble. She has wrapped Baltar around her little finger and seems to be calling the shots, whether the bumbling scientist realizes it or not.

Bill has no doubt at all that she is the one who has, through Baltar, managed to hack into the defence mainframe. She is the one working for Cylons.

From there, it gets complicated, and having only the one day to achieve what must be done, is not making things any easier.

The way Bill sees it, he will have to somehow get Baltar alone, then get to Laura, explain everything to both her and Baltar, and then take it to the president. They won't be able to fix the defence system without Baltar, but Bill has no intention of letting the scientist get away with what he has done with the blonde either, unintentionally or not, and therefore it is essential that the president is also informed. It might be easier to bypass Adar in this scheme entirely since Baltar would probably be able to fix the problem alone, but Bill fears it would only delay the attacks, not prevent them. The government must be made aware of the immediate threat so that they may begin a more comprehensive reform of the entire defence organization once the present threat has been dealt with.

It is also essential that the blonde must be captured and questioned. Gaius Baltar should be punished as well, but Bill rather suspects that his co-operation is more important than his punishment. If he can have his way, they should cut a deal with Baltar. Treason is punishable by death, but Bill hopes all parties can be made to agree that his life and relative freedom in exchange for his help in fixing the problem is a fair trade under the circumstances.

And so Bill starts pursuing his latest plan.

The puzzle he has been trying to complete for weeks now, seems to finally have all of its pieces, but the task of putting them together is still far from easy. What he has going for him, though, is the progress he has already made in finding the most effective ways to deal with Laura and Adar. Getting the president’s ear has become an obstacle course Bill already knows how to run.

Once he comes to realize that Gaius Baltar cares about nothing as much as he cares about himself, it's not that difficult to find ways to persuade him either.

"You will co-operate or die as a traitor," is a line that never fails to work.

Within a week, Bill has everyone where he wants them.

He finds a pretense to get Baltar alone.

He watches the blonde leave and then walks with Baltar over to where Laura has already arrived for her daily meeting by the Riverwalk.

He goes through his well-rehearsed speech about the problem he suspects in the defence mainframe. It helps that by now he knows so much that he doesn't even need to go into how he has already lived through this day. When he mentions the blonde and the defence mainframe, Baltar's visible uneasiness is enough to raise Laura's suspicions, and she takes the lead from there.

The scientist breaks under questioning and admits he has allowed the woman access to the system. He insists he trusts her implicitly and is certain that no harm has been done, but Laura is not so easily placated.

She makes a phone call and all three of them are soon whisked away and brought to meet the president - not in his office where Bill has previously met him, but in what appears to be an underground facility of some sort. A bunker, perhaps, with living quarters for quite a considerable amount of people, and a control room of some kind filled with screens and computers.

"Laura," Adar greets her before anyone else, and not for the first time Bill wonders if there is more to their relationship than meets the eye. "What is this about a crack in the defence mainframe? I was in the middle of a meeting and..."

"This is Commander William Adama," Laura interrupts him, subtly angling herself so that Adar must drop the hand he has placed on her arm. "He had received intel that the defence mainframe might be compromised and Doctor Gaius Baltar here has just confessed he has allowed an unauthorized person to access the system. Commander Adama suspects this person might be an enemy spy."

"N-not intentionally," the sniveling scientist interjects. “I never meant to…”

"I think we should have the mainframe locked down and checked immediately for any anomalies," Laura continues, ignoring the man. "Commander Adama believes we might currently be vulnerable to an attack if nothing is done."

The president's questioning eyes turn from Laura to Bill and Bill, who has learned that sometimes the less said is better, only communicates his agreement briefly before moving on to describe Baltar's accomplice, suggesting they capture her without delay for further questioning.

For once, perhaps swept by the fast pace at which everything is now moving, the president takes his word for it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter basically completes the story, but there's still an epilogue to come. :)

When Adar orders Baltar's arrest, Bill manages to persuade him to consider the options. Their first objective must be to fix the defence mainframe if there's a flaw, and for that they need Baltar.

Only his help can buy them enough time to start planning a whole new, uncompromised system of defence in the future.

"Nobody has heard of the Cylons in years," Bill ventures to reason. "They might be millions of light-years away, or they might be planning an attack on this very day. This crack in the defence system could be their doing. As long as we don't know, we shouldn't take any risks."

If only they knew.

Laura agrees with Bill and he casts her a grateful smile.

Baltar launches into a long speech about how he will not rest until he has fixed his error - how nothing is more important to him than the safety of the Colonies - and how he hopes the president will take that into account when he later considers his part in all this.

Adar promises him nothing, but orders a team of scientist to work on the defence mainframe with Baltar. He will not be allowed anywhere near the code anymore without supervision.

***

While Baltar works against the clock, Bill remains observant, taking mental notes of where things might be going wrong, in case he has to repeat it all again tomorrow.

He watches Laura and Adar from a distance, talking quietly to one another, and again he is struck by the appearance of intimacy between them that seems to go beyond professional courtesy.

She always leans just a little too close to him when she has something to say. His hand always lingers just a little too low on her back to be entirely professional, or even appropriate.

Bill suspects it's a habit long in the making - something the two of them are no longer even aware of. Otherwise they might be more careful about their body language. As far as he knows, Adar remains married, so an affair with the Secretary of Education would be a scandal indeed.

Laura could certainly do so much better than that sleaze of a man - president or not.

She could do better than Bill, too, he is sure, but that doesn't stop him from thinking about her in ways that are not altogether appropriate.

There's something about the end of the world that brings about the most primal of urges, Bill figures. If the world really has to end, he wouldn't mind spending his last day frakking Laura Roslin.

But perhaps today is not the day the world ends, after all.

Before too long, the scientists report a break-through. The hack in the defence mainframe has been identified and isolated and Dr. Baltar has found a way to fix it. It will take some time, but as Bill looks at the clock, he believes they might just make it this time.

More progress is made when a report comes in that Baltar's associate has been captured. It turns out she has readily confessed that the Cylons are coming and she seems to believe that it can't be stopped.

But she doesn't know that this time, the humans are ahead. The plan has already been compromised.

Within another hour, the defence mainframe is fixed, and when the first wave of attacks starts, the Cylons are intercepted before they can enter the atmosphere or even do any real damage on the battlestars orbiting the colonies. The second wave of attacks never comes.

***

The next morning, Bill wakes up in the bunker where they have spent the night, waiting for confirmation that the attack is truly over and averted.

The place is more crowded now, Adar's family and some other members of his administration having quickly joined them there at the first sign of a real threat.

After the arrival of Adar's family, Laura had made herself scarce from the president’s immediate vicinity, gravitating more towards Bill for the rest of night.

"Too crowded?" Bill had asked as he had caught her watching the Adars from a distance.

She had blushed, forced a laugh, and then shaken her head. "Gods, is it that obvious?"

"Only for an old military man like me," Bill had assured her. "I'm a keen observer, but your secret is safe with me."

She had smiled at him, then, a little sadly. "I'm going to end it," she had promised, and Bill believed her.

In the morning, he finds Laura awkwardly asleep on a couch. The night has been uneventful but many have been too anxious to go to bed. Most have simply fallen asleep on whatever vaguely flat surface they found during the night.

Bill takes a chair next to her and pulls the blanket he had procured for himself over her sleeping form.

She stirs and then jolts awake.

"Cylons..." she mutters, still a little disoriented as she takes in her surroundings.

"All gone," Bill assures her, "At least for now."

Laura fixes her eyes on Bill, blinking off the remnants of sleep.

"I didn't mean to fall asleep," she yawns.

Bill smiles. "I'm sure they didn't either," he replies, pointing out the various members of Adar's cabinet sprawled around the main area of the bunker, all fast asleep.

Only the president and various military personnel seem to be awake, locked away in the separate control room. As a commander himself, not to mention the man of the hour who had saved the day, Bill had been asked to join them, but he had bowed out once they had safely passed midnight. It was the first time he had reached that mark without being returned to his rack on Galactica. He figured he had earned his rest.

It seemed whatever part he had for some gods forsaken reason been picked to play in this apocalypse was now over, and the apocalypse averted. He was officially retired and had never been more pleased about the prospect.

"I don't think I've thanked you properly yet," Laura says then, sitting up to a more comfortable position as she stretches her clearly aching muscles. "How did you actually know the defense mainframe was compromised?"

Bill hesitates a little, realizing that this time he's not getting a do-over if he chooses his words poorly.

"It's a long story, but mostly I just happened to be in the right place at the right time," he says at last, which is at least somewhat true. "I must confess I was actually supposed to meet you on my battlestar yesterday, for the decommissioning," he adds with a little glint in his eye.

Laura looks at him for a moment before realization seems to hit her. "Commander Adama, of course!" she exclaims. "Galactica…I really should have made the connection yesterday, but I hadn't started prepping for the trip yet."

"Well, understandably all our minds were a little occupied yesterday," Bill replies modestly, and then goes on to explain: "The truth is, I simply didn't want to attend the decommissioning - hated the idea of Galactica being turned into a museum, and so I decided to take my retirement a day early and headed to Caprica as my own private act of rebellion."

To Bill's surprise, Laura actually laughs at his confession.

“I’d never have guessed that of you,” she muses. Then she grows serious again: "So you didn't come to Caprica specifically to warn us?"

"No," Bill has to lie, hoping he can pull it off. "Things just started snowballing when I got to the Riverwalk and overheard by chance part of Baltar's and that woman's conversation. I got suspicious but wasn't sure what to do. Then I saw you, recognized you as the Secretary I was supposed to meet on Galactica, and just followed my gut," he explains, infusing his story with as much truth as he can. "I'm glad I did," he finishes at last with a tentative smile.

Laura studies his face carefully for a moment, and Bill fears she is about to launch into more questions, but then she, too, breaks into a smile.

"I'm glad you did, too, Commander," she replies.

"Bill, just call me Bill," he says.

"Laura," she replies, extending her hand.

In a way, it feels like a first meeting, even for Bill. A fresh start full of promise that was never present in any of their previous first meetings.


	5. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. This last part is all Bill and Laura.

They spend the best part of the morning in the bunker, but once they receive an all clear from the military command, most of the civilians start making their way out. The president and some key figures of his cabinet will stay in heightened protection until further preparations can be made to ensure the safety of the Colonies, but the less important people are allowed return to their lives.

Laura, as only the Secretary of Education, is free to go. Adar offers a security detail for her, to escort her home, but she declines.

"If they nuke the city, a security detail isn't going to help," she brushes off his offer. Bill can't help but smile at her sardonic response.

In private, he approaches her himself.

"I may not be able to save you from nukes, but I would be happy to escort you home," he offers with a playful smirk. "Seeing as I am newly retired and the president has grounded all flights for the time being, I can't even return to Galactica to pack up my things. I find myself quite at liberty."

She smiles at him, a mixture of amusement and something more difficult to define. Bill thinks he can see a hint of regret in her eyes.

"Thank you," she says at last. "I think I would like that."

President Adar doesn't look too pleased when the two leave together, but Bill is all the more pleased about how unconcerned Laura seems to be about it.

The day looks to be a beautiful one, life going on almost as if nothing has happened the day before. To most people, Bill suspects, nothing has. They don't even know how close they had all been to destruction, and he doesn’t doubt that the president would rather keep it that way. Undoubtedly, when all this is over, Adar will find a way to come out looking like a hero without spreading any panic.

Instead of taking Laura home, Bill takes her to breakfast to one of his favorite diners, and the morning rolls into an afternoon before he can really account for the passage of time.

They talk about everything and nothing, and Bill finds Laura less guarded and more open to conversation than she ever was on Galactica. Perhaps it's a by-product of surviving together what could have been the end of the world.

He is just about to suggest they continue this outside, when suddenly Laura's face grows serious and pain flashes across her features as she seems to grow increasingly uncomfortable.

"Excuse me," is all she manages to blurt out before making a dash towards the restrooms.

When she comes back several minutes later, she looks pale and exhausted.

"I'm sorry," she apologizes, sinking back into her seat.

It must be the cancer.

"Is everything okay?" Bill asks, concerned.

"I'm fine," she sighs, but then seems to reconsider, straightening up in her seat. "Actually no," she says then and pauses again.

Bill waits patiently as she looks for the right words, and in the end she comes out with it in the straightforward fashion he has come to expect from her:

"I have cancer," she blurts. "It was caught late and the prognosis is not good." Her voice cracks a little as she speaks, just like the first time she told him, but this time, too, she shows no other signs of breaking down in front of him.

Because Bill can offer no comforting words that would make a difference, he instinctively reaches out across the table instead and takes her hand into his.

He can tell she is surprised by his action, but despite an initial jolt at his first touch, she doesn't pull her hand a way.

"I just thought you should know," she says then, smiling a little sadly. "I do like you, and if things were different..."

"Things are just fine," Bill interrupts her, refusing to hear any excuses.

"I could die within months," she insists.

"You could get better," he counters.

Laura smiles at his optimism but shakes her head.

"Even if I do, I'll have to go through months of toxic treatments. I won't be any fun to hang around with." She pauses and then adds with a slight blush: "And I certainly won't be pretty to look at."

Bill looks at Laura, trying to picture her without hair, with pale skin and hollow cheeks, but all he can see are her captivating eyes, and he can’t imagine any way she could look that he would not find beautiful.

“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?” he suggests at last, and watches as the resolve on Laura's face begins to crumble.

***

The chill in the air marks the beginning of winter when Bill wheels Laura out of the hospital following her last round of treatments. She will return a few weeks later for the final tests, but all the samples taken during her final treatment periods have already produced promising results. Despite the initially doubtful prognosis, she's responded well to the chosen course of treatments and the doctors are now optimistic about a full recovery.

Bill had never doubted the outcome, even on the long nights spent keeping Laura company on her bathroom floor as she hurled out the already non-existent contents of her stomach after a grueling round of doloxin treatments, or the equally long days when she didn't have the strength to get our of bed at all.

After the first couple of months, Bill had practically lived in Laura's apartment, taking her to treatments, making sure she took her medication every day and ate as much as she could in the moments she was feeling marginally better. When she had strength for nothing else, he'd sit by her bed and read her books until she fell asleep. On better days, he would take her out for short walks, making sure she didn't spend too much of her good time working. Despite her leave of absence, she was still the Secretary of Education, at least in name, and Laura wanted to hold on to the reigns as much as she could, even as most of her duties had been delegated to others for the time being.

If Bill felt jealous when she sometimes had long phone conversations with Richard Adar, he did his best to not let it show. President Adar was still her boss, after all, and the tone of the calls was always professional. As far as Bill knew, the two had only met once after Laura had begun her treatments, and that was when Adar had pinned a medal on Bill's chest for his part in the prevention of the Cylon attacks.

 

"I can walk to the car from here." Bill hears Laura's voice then, bringing him back to the present. She had begrudgingly agreed to the wheelchair for the long hospital corridors, but she has always been adamant about walking out on her own two feet.

"I could bring the car around," Bill suggests, but she declines the offer. The parking lot is not far. The support of his arm will be enough.

They don't speak as they slowly make their way to the vehicle and Bill can sense that Laura is mulling something over in her mind.

"Bill..." she starts at last when they are both in the car. Something about the tone of her voice gives Bill pause and, instead of starting the car, he turns to look at Laura.

"Yeah?" he asks, prompting her to continue.

"I hope you know how much I appreciate everything you've done for me," she says. "I'm sure it's been more than you bargained for, but I also know I couldn't have made it through these treatments without you."

"Of course you could have," Bill replies. It has never ceased to amaze him how strong this woman is. The only thing that amazes him is that she doesn't seem to see it herself. "But I'm glad you've allowed me to be there for you," he adds then, more softly.

She smiles, but Bill can see something else lingering behind the smile. A sadness he still sees too often in her.

"I never wanted to be a burden to you," she says then. "I hope you know that."

"You never have been," Bill assures her, wondering where all this is suddenly coming from. These are the kind of words she used for keeping him at arm's length at the start, but he had thought they'd moved past that already. Surely she knows by now that he's here because he wants to, not because he feels sorry, or somehow obliged?

"Thank you," she says again and then falls silent. Bill has a feeling there's something more she hasn't said yet, but he doesn't pressure her, knowing that she will come out with it when she's ready.

It's when he has helped Laura to rest on her couch that suddenly her fingers curl around his wrist, halting his movement.

"Bill," she says. "Would you sit down for a moment?"

He does, taking her hand into his and giving it a gentle squeeze.

"You're a good man, Bill," she says, her voice sounding a little drowsy as her medications start to kick in. "I haven't had many of those."

Thinking of what a poor husband and father he has previously been, Bill doesn't feel like he deserves the praise, so he simply shakes his head.

"No, you are," she insists. "And I don't want you to feel bound to me just because you think I need you, or because you feel like you should."

So that's what she'd had on her mind.

"Are you saying you want me to leave?" Bill asks, shifting in his seat. After all these months, he can't believe that she would - doesn't know how he could if she does.

She shakes her head, a tear falling down her cheek. "No," she sniffs.

Bill frowns. "Then where's this coming from?" he asks, waiting for her to meet his eyes again. "Laura?"

"I'm so stupid," she says with an unexpected, mirthless laugh, shaking her head. "Whenever I felt guilty about how much I was asking of you, allowing you to devote so much time and energy on me, I always told myself it was only temporary - that you'd be free when I..." she doesn't say the word out loud, but Bill knows all too well what she's implying. She had been certain she would die. "I knew I was being selfish," she continues, "but I told myself it couldn't hurt if I allowed myself some comfort for the last couple of months of my life."

"You weren't being selfish," Bill cuts in. She had been everything but - always asking for and accepting much less than he would have been willing to give her.

Laura only shakes her head, and then continues: "Until the last few weeks, I never thought I might actually be getting better - that I'd have to face a life after..." she gestures at herself, the couch, the drugs on the table, "...after all this." She pauses again, tears still lingering in her eyes as she looks at Bill. "I wouldn't blame you if you didn't want to be part of that life anymore, after I've put you through so much already."

The dread Bill has been feeling since the start of her speech evaporates at her last words, and his face breaks into a relieved smile.

"That's what you've been worried about?" he asks, chuckling as he runs his thumb across Laura's cheek, catching the fallen tears. "And here I thought you were trying to find a polite way to give me my marching orders now that you won't be needing me anymore." Then he grows serious again. "Laura," he says, caressing her face. "I'm not going anywhere unless you kick me out of your life."

She smiles at him then, but Bill can see the doubt still lingering in her eyes.

"You've been cleaning after my sick for months now," she says ruefully. "I'd understand if that's more than you've ever wanted to see of me, or if you can't see me as anything more than a friend..."

Bill sighs, wishing he could somehow make her understand. Perhaps there's only one way he can.

"I love you, Laura," he says, squeezing her hand as he looks into her eyes, willing her to see the truth in his. "I can be your friend if that's what you want, but I'd like to be much more than that, if you allow me to."

Bill realizes they have never really talked about this. He had assumed she knew how he felt, but then he often forgets he still knows her better than she does him. Most of the time that he has been in her life, she has been too sick to even question why he has stayed with her.

His declaration of love now earns him at first a smile and then, a moment later, a lingering kiss that pushes the boundaries they have unconsciously held for months now due to Laura's illness. 

She doesn't say she loves him back - not yet - but Bill can see enough in her eyes - can feel enough in the gentle exploration of her lips - to know there is hope. For now, he is happy enough that she simply accepts his words, and accepts him in her life. And, most importantly, that she lives.

When Laura is declared healthy, her cancer officially in remission, Bill takes her out on their first real date. It might be a rather unusual order of doing things, considering how much they've been through together already, but he wouldn't have it any other way.

The only period of unease Bill goes through is when Laura returns to work. Ar first he cannot shake his lingering fear that he might lose her to the life she used to have, but he learns soon that the fear is without base. She is tired of politics, tired of Richard Adar, and more than willing to cut back her hours.

"I think I've earned the right to live a little," she tells him with a playful smile, and he fully agrees.

Perhaps it is a little backwards that Laura shares her life with Bill long before she fully shares her heart, but when she finally tells him she loves him, Bill knows she means it like she has never meant it before.

When he cheekily tells her it's about time, she only laughs at his words before claiming his lips for a kiss.

It's a good thing the world didn't end, after all.


End file.
